DVC "Seasons"

[kboo]

I wish I could handle the heat in August/September, but I'm pretty sure I would melt in those temperatures.

We just went the 2nd/3rd week this April and we thought the crowds weren't all that bad, even on the weekend. We rode the Barnstormer at MK 10 times one morning before we had to wait more than a few minutes to get on, and we didn't get to the park until after rope drop.

When we were VGF last August on rented points was during that period when it was 100+ each day and mostly sunny and humid. We spent a lot of time at the pool, but it generally wasn't too bad. We just hit the parks early and were gone by midday. We got all sorts of FP pixie dust/lotto (some would call it "compensation") that more than made up for it - one of our kids dropped a Mickey pretzel on the ground and a CM saw and came up and wrote a voucher for a new one; we waited 20 minutes in the heat (in the shade) for the MK/AK bus and a CM came up and started writing anytime FP for any ride in AK; 7DMT closed due to thunderstorm led to an anytime/anything FP the next day, etc etc. I do think when the parks are less crowded, the CMs have the mental space to see and address minor things that would otherwise go unnoticed on a high crowd level day. And now that we are stuck on a school calendar, I feel like the only low crowd level times we can expect to go are around Labor Day weekend.

 

[CarolMN]

To me, it appears that some equate the "speed" of booking (how fast something sells out) with a need to reallocate. IMO, that is not a reason that drives (or should drive) a relocation. DVC's "fiduciary duty" is to the system as a whole. For DVC, the duty is to have all villas booked by arrival date. It is not necessary that everything gets to that point at about the same speed.

When DVC reallocated between weekends and weeknights, they were seeing weekend nights sit empty far more than was good for the system as a whole. I don't see something like that happening now. No matter the season, the villas are filling - points are not going unused to the extent a reallocation would be necessary to fill unused nights. (Probably due to the increasing popularity of renting). Of course that is just my opinion - yours may differ.

 

[lovin'fl]

When DVC reallocated between weekends and weeknights, they were seeing weekend nights sit empty far more than was good for the system as a whole. I don't see something like that happening now. No matter the season, the villas are filling - points are not going unused to the extent a reallocation would be necessary to fill unused nights. (Probably due to the increasing popularity of renting). Of course that is just my opinion - yours may differ.

Yes, and they do need to reshuffle HHI points. The weekends are so much higher that I notice they sit unbooked for a while. I, myself, try to avoid. We go in 11 days and I could have booked through Sunday but didn't want to pay the 56 points for Sat night versus the 33 I am paying for Tue/Wed/Thur. I paid it for Friday night, begrudgingly, but would have booked Monday night instead, had it been available.

 

[CarolMN]

Yes, and they do need to reshuffle HHI points. The weekends are so much higher that I notice they sit unbooked for a while. I, myself, try to avoid. We go in 11 days and I could have booked through Sunday but didn't want to pay the 56 points for Sat night versus the 33 I am paying for Tue/Wed/Thur. I paid it for Friday night, begrudgingly, but would have booked Monday night instead, had it been available.

Sounds like you were booking at 7 months? If so, a reallocation probably won't fix your issue.

I've not seen HHI on the 60 day availability chart, so it would appear that the villas are getting booked by arrival and not sitting empty.

 

[lovin'fl]

Sounds like you were booking at 7 months? If so, a reallocation probably won't fix your issue.

I've not seen HHI on the 60 day availability chart, so it would appear that the villas are getting booked by arrival and not sitting empty.

We own HHI but cancelled a room, in Feb on 31 days out, for our March trip to BWV and the points were June UY so had to book something by end of May. And so I pulled up May and every Fri/Sat was available...in June as well and a few in April. And one week had a few weekdays available too, so I booked it and it think that was pretty much the only weekdays in April, May and June. Couldn't book June anyway due to points expiring but it did highlight that maybe they need to reallocate points a little. Going to go play on the RAT now to see HHI availability. Just curious.

 

[lovin'fl]

so right now....HHI....2BR has 3 Fridays and 5 Saturdays available in May and June. The only weekdays available are May 6-10 which is coming up so someone must have just cancelled. The 3BR GV, of which there are only 5, has 4 Fridays and 3 Saturdays and no weekdays open in May and June. In May weekdays are 59 pts and weekends are 95 pts...June is 71 and 112.

 

[DaveNan]

Disney made that issue worse with the Murphy beds in the studios.

Agreed with this. There is already more pressure on studios versus 1br. And with the Murphy beds some resorts have higher occupancy in studios (up to 5) versus 1br (4). Why they did not limit studios to 4 and up 1br to 5 makes no sense.

 

[zavandor]

I own another timeshare (actually the timeshare that invented the points system) where 90% of studios sleep 2 and a few sleep 3. I think it's healthier for the system.

 

[lovin'fl]

I own another timeshare (actually the timeshare that invented the points system) where 90% of studios sleep 2 and a few sleep 3. I think it's healthier for the system.

Totally agree. Wish studios would be for only up to 3 and 1BR should be 4 or 5. But then they wouldn't sell new resorts at crazy direct prices. I think many new buyers can only afford small contracts at these crazy prices so they buy small contracts and squeeze into studios. In my mind, that totally defeats the point of DVC. For us, as family of 5, we wanted condo like rooms with master bedroom. If we wanted to squeeze into studios, we just would have kept booking POR with free dining.

 

[CarolMN]

so right now....HHI....2BR has 3 Fridays and 5 Saturdays available in May and June. The only weekdays available are May 6-10 which is coming up so someone must have just cancelled. The 3BR GV, of which there are only 5, has 4 Fridays and 3 Saturdays and no weekdays open in May and June. In May weekdays are 59 pts and weekends are 95 pts...June is 71 and 112.

Intetesting. Those must have just become available since 4/30. The 60 day snapshot doesn't show any availability at all for HHI from May 6 through June 30.

https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/vacation-planning/resort-availability-stays/

 

[lovin'fl]

Intetesting. Those must have just become available since 4/30. The 60 day snapshot doesn't show any availability at all for HHI from May 6 through June 30.

https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/vacation-planning/resort-availability-stays/

I booked in Feb and have been watching since cause I had Tue 5/15 WL and was stalking (but my WL came through, yay). They have been available. Both Fri and Sat every week was in Feb and some of those have since been grabbed. Wonder why they left out of snapshot?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Intetesting. Those must have just become available since 4/30. The 60 day snapshot doesn't show any availability at all for HHI from May 6 through June 30.

https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/vacation-planning/resort-availability-stays/

I looked at that once or twice when they first released it but quickly realized it's very static plus they also state it's just a sampling of what the availability. I did not find that it matched up to all availability when I last looked although that was awhile ago. I don't know what their selection criteria is. That RAT is better for getting a full look at things IMO. This might be helpful if you were looking to find a time that seemed to have more availability than others and were tossing around a time to book last minute.

 

[SL6827]

I figure if I plan to go during the "Fall Frenzy" time period or in December I will have to stay at my home resort, OKW, or maybe SSR. Either one is fine by me. Are they going to be doing a refurb on SSR anytime soon, I thought I read that somewhere or am I just imagining that?

 

[lovin'fl]

I figure if I plan to go during the "Fall Frenzy" time period or in December I will have to stay at my home resort, OKW, or maybe SSR. Either one is fine by me. Are they going to be doing a refurb on SSR anytime soon, I thought I read that somewhere or am I just imagining that?

They are renovating OKW right now and O think SSR is next on the list.

 

[SL6827]

There is always a lot of talk about buying where you want to stay, and I get that. But I can say for myself, there is not one Disney resort/DVC that I would want to stay at every single time. By looking at my signature, the only one we have stayed twice at so far is Hilton Head. If I were not able to use my points at different places other than my DVC home, I wouldn't have even bought my "get your feet wet" contract.

 

[lovin'fl]

There is always a lot of talk about buying where you want to stay, and I get that. But I can say for myself, there is not one Disney resort/DVC that I would want to stay at every single time. By looking at my signature, the only one we have stayed twice at so far is Hilton Head. If I were not able to use my points at different places other than my DVC home, I wouldn't have even bought my "get your feet wet" contract.

Yes, this is us. We also like split stays at 2 resorts as well. It's like 2 trips in one. And while we have favorite resorts and could put them all in order of fave to least fave, we don't NOT like any of them. OKW and SSR may be at the bottom of our list but we do love some things about those resorts and like to stay at them once in awhile.

 

[disneynutz]

There is always a lot of talk about buying where you want to stay, and I get that. But I can say for myself, there is not one Disney resort/DVC that I would want to stay at every single time. By looking at my signature, the only one we have stayed twice at so far is Hilton Head. If I were not able to use my points at different places other than my DVC home, I wouldn't have even bought my "get your feet wet" contract.

We felt the same way when we first bought. Tried all of the resorts and found ourselves liking some more then others. As new resorts were added we got caught up in the excitement and bought some of them. Again we found ourselves staying at our favorites even though we had purchased others. We now have 7 home resorts but love to stay at only 3. BWV at least once per year and either VGF or CCV cabins once per year. We got tired of taking chances booking at 7 months and sometimes being disappointed. We no longer wait-list, book at 11 months and have found that the more you touch the reservation, the greater the chance of something going wrong.

Bill

 

[gillep]

There is always a lot of talk about buying where you want to stay, and I get that. But I can say for myself, there is not one Disney resort/DVC that I would want to stay at every single time. By looking at my signature, the only one we have stayed twice at so far is Hilton Head. If I were not able to use my points at different places other than my DVC home, I wouldn't have even bought my "get your feet wet" contract.

We felt this way in the beginning and were perfectly happy to stay at any of the DVC resorts, although we purchased AKV because I wanted the option of at least trying for CL rooms for longer stays. As time has passed we have decided that we really like some resorts and really dislike others. We then decided to add on at BCV so that we could do our F&W trips at BCV (way too much stress trying to get that at 7 months) and use our AKV points for our winter trip. We sometimes go in the spring as well and use that trip to 'shop around' at the 7 month window. After staying at CCV though, I see another add on in our future! For me, I have fully embraced the 'buy where you want to stay' mentality, there is no stress, and I know that I am going to have great trips in resorts that I really like, DVC is expensive and I don't want to feel like I have to compromise after spending that much money.

 

[SL6827]

We felt this way in the beginning and were perfectly happy to stay at any of the DVC resorts, although we purchased AKV because I wanted the option of at least trying for CL rooms for longer stays. As time has passed we have decided that we really like some resorts and really dislike others. We then decided to add on at BCV so that we could do our F&W trips at BCV (way too much stress trying to get that at 7 months) and use our AKV points for our winter trip. We sometimes go in the spring as well and use that trip to 'shop around' at the 7 month window. After staying at CCV though, I see another add on in our future! For me, I have fully embraced the 'buy where you want to stay' mentality, there is no stress, and I know that I am going to have great trips in resorts that I really like, DVC is expensive and I don't want to feel like I have to compromise after spending that much money.

If booking the CL rooms were easier for those who own at AKV, I wouldn't mind owning some points there. But I realize that even if you own there, doesn't mean your getting in.

 

[gillep]

If booking the CL rooms were easier for those who own at AKV, I wouldn't mind owning some points there. But I realize that even if you own there, doesn't mean your getting in.

Although it certainly is not a given, I personally, have always gotten at least half of my week stay in the CL rooms, and usually get the full week. The time period I go can sometimes be a couple days away from a major holiday and other times be a week or so away from that major holiday, I only have an issue for those stays that are closer to the holiday. Not everyone is as lucky though, so I certainly agree not to buy at AKV if you would be disappointed by not being able to get a CL room. Also, some people really don't like the CL rooms so you will have a better idea about how you feel about them after you stay.